1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the synchronization of sink devices that receive data, such as audio and/or video data, wirelessly streamed by a source device.
2. Background Art
Wireless communication protocols, such as the BLUETOOTH protocol, enable a variety of types of data streams to be provided by source devices to sink devices in a wireless fashion. For example, audio and video data may be streamed by the source devices to the sink devices. However, in cases where related data is streamed to multiple sink devices by a source device, it may be difficult to synchronize the processing and outputting of the data by the sink devices. For example, audio data may be transmitted by a music player to wireless speakers. It is desirable for the audio outputs of the speakers to be synchronized so that the audio may be heard clearly, and in stereo, by a listener. In another example, video data may be transmitted by a video source to wireless video display devices. It may be desirable that the video image streams output by the video display devices be synchronized. In still another example, a media source may transmit audio data to one or more wireless speakers and video data to one or more wireless display devices. It may be desirable that the audio sound and video image streams output by the speaker(s) and display(s) be synchronized for synchronized listening and viewing by the audience.
Thus, what is desired are ways of synchronizing the output of data streamed to sink devices in a wireless fashion.